Choice Inconsistencies among the Elderly: Evidence from Plan Choice in the Medicare Part D Program: Comment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ketcham, Jonathan D.; Kuminoff, Nicolai V.; Powers, Christopher A.
• 署名单位: Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; National Bureau of Economic Research; CMS Alliance to Modernize Healthcare; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; CMS Alliance to Modernize Healthcare; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20131048
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 3932-3961
• 关键词: health-insurance; consumer; INFORMATION; selection; inertia

摘要

Consumers' enrollment decisions in Medicare Part D call be explained by Abaluck and Gruber's (2011) model of utility maximization with psychological biases or by a neoclassical version of their model that precludes such biases. We evaluate these competing hypotheses by applying nonparametric tests of utility maximization and model validation tests to administrative data. We find that 79 percent of enrollment decisions from 2006 to 2010 satisfied basic axioms of consumer theory under the assumption of full information. The validation tests provide evidence against widespread psychological biases. In particular, we find that precluding psychological biases improves the structural model's out-of-sample predictions for consumer behavior.